The Sand Castle
by witchfingers
Summary: AU: 25 year-old Danny goes with his family to the beach on vacation. But a mysterious and beautiful apparition steals his heart, Jazz is kidnapped by a supernatural being, and the Sand Castle is looking for a new Queen. /Danny x Sam/
1. Chapter 1

**The sand castle**

_25 year-old Danny goes with his parents and Jazz to the beach. Suddenly, things are just getting worse, and the Sand Castle is looking for a new Queen._

_I don't own Danny Phantom!! This began just a weird idea with my sister, and then grew into a story. Reviews are very much appreciated!!! ENJOY!_

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There was not even a sad notice that welcomed them into the shadowy town. One would think that the place would've wanted to atract tourists and whatnot for the summer season, but no, nothing seemed to be at least friendly to them in that little piece of nowhere which happened to be called Sandville.

The streets were deserted, and the scarce trees showed them that, outside the van's windows, the wind was blowing wildly. Only someone as ghost-obsessed as Maddie Fenton would have suggested that place for vacation, and only someone as enthusiastic as Jack Fenton would have agreed. And only someone as resigned as Danny or Jazz could accept being dragged along.

Let me explain.

Sandville was set somewhere along the Pacific coast, in a place where the coast was plagued with accidents and curious landforms. Sudden cliffs and unsuspected coves sprouted as though they were a normal thing, and a spiderweb of legends had grown around the town and its whereabouts. The place had always had a rather hideous reputation, since from old days, sailors had been warning the people of strange lights to be seen at night roaming the shores, and otherworldly wailings could be told from the thundering of the unleashed waves against the cliffs. It was said that the town and the beaches overflowed with ghosts and ghouls, and, to top it all, some decades ago Sandville had been all over the papers due to some mysterious disappearance of a tourist.

Jazz sighed, totally into her book now that she'd seen how the infamous town looked like. Let her parents worry about finding the apparently elusive hotel. Danny looked, bored, out of the window, wondering again what had made him throw away his very well earned vacations in such a miserable place like that.

Jack and Maddie were, though, another story. They gushed about the place as though it was Heaven, and the little map of the streets seemed to appear to them like a salvation and a guidance through Terra Incognita. "_Oh well, let them be_," thought Danny, "_they've not had a properly called vacation in many years. One could have gueesed they'd be tired of camping eventually._"

The hotel they finally arrived at was modest, but rather cosy-looking. They learnt from the man at the reception that it was only half-full, which wasn't really a surprise. Their rooms were in the first floor, and after they'd left their things there (and Jazz and Danny had endured the embarrassment of seeing their parents take all their ghost-hunting equipment up the stairs), they decided to go check out the beach, since it only was mid-afternoon.

"So, what do you make out of this place?" Danny asked Jazz.

"Well," she said, "I make that we're doomed to a sunless summer". She looked resigned but not too sullen. "Besides," she went on, "Mom and Dad are quite happy, just look at them!"

Jack and Maddie walked ahead of them, holding hands. They'd changed into their too-retro-to-be-cool bathing suits, and were singing some last century radio hit. But, they did look happy.

"Yeah, I see that," Danny said. "I'm just a bit resented, thay they'd choose a ghost infested place for a vacation. It won't be vacation to me."

"Oh come on Danny," she scolded, "Relaxation starts in your head, so quit worrying a bit."

He sighed. "I don't know, Jazz," he looked around, "I'm not too confortable here..."

She shook her head with a slight you're-too-stressed kind of smile. "You'll see how a good night's sleep will wash away all your anxiety," she told him.

They both fell into silence after that. The wind was attacking them, even though they weren't in the beach yet. Danny was feeling a bit chilly through his jeans and t-shirt, and when they did get to the beach, the wind lifted the sand and threw it so hard at them, that he thought for a second that they might've come in the wrong season.

"I wonder," he said, "If this is this place's summer, what's the _winter_ like?!"

Jazz shot him a meaningful glare, so as to say, "keep your complaints in your head, don't be a spoilsparty". Some meters still ahead of them, Jack and Maddie were taking pictures of the landscape. A very pretty, but rather monochromatic landscape.

Danny roamed a bit around the place, while Jazz busied herself in convincing a hermit crab to come out of a pretty seashell. The horizon was only a straight line in the sea part, but for the rest it was crowded with sharp-edged stones and not faraway cliffs, all which hinted at odd sea inlets. As he looked to his right, a colosal structure which _wasn't_ there before caught his attention. It was an enormous sand castle, about a kilometer away from where he stood. The towers were a work of art, resembling seashells, and it told of immense riches and power, with its heavily embelished walls and superb merlons. Danny called Jazz for her to look at it, but when she and he himself looked again, there was no thing as a trace of the magnificent sand castle left.

As Dany described it for Jazz, she looked blankly at him. "Otherwise I wouldn't believe it, but given it was you the one who saw it, I'll give you half-credit," she joked.

Danny remained looking at the spot where the towers had banished into thin air for a long while, long enough and absentmindedly enough for his father to have to call him.

"Come on son, we're heading back," he said with that afable way of his. Danny yeah-ed and trailed after him, not before taking a last look at the innocent and empty-looking stretch of beach.

"_That was just plain weird_", he thought, with an ominous feeling.

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So? What do you think? Worth reviewing, isn't it? =) The writer kisses your soul. Till next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Well well, here goes...

**CHAPTER 2**

He was startled awake.

Only his second night there, and he was already being deprived of his sleep. Voices were coming of from the room next to his, but as he phased through the wall, he realized it was just his father hunting a ghost in his sleep. He scolded himself mentally for being so damn paranoid. Either way, he was unable to lure blissful sleep back to him, so he started counting the nails on the windowsill. But it only made him more bored and more sleepless. So he put his jeans over his pajamas and grabbed his thick coat, and floated down, towards the deserted street.

A heavy scent of sea, strong as he'd never felt it before, took over him. He felt funny, lighter, in some way. As he made his way down the main street, which eventually led to a small pier and to the broad sand beach, he was already hoping everything would end soon, so that he could go back to his pacific job in the lab. The lab in the NASA, where they did experiments on zero gravity. He loved it there. Totally Danny-friendly environment, and nule ghost threats. Paradise.

As his thoughts dwelled in happier places, his feet took him somewhere very different. He was already leaving the pier behind, and heading for the right end of the beach. Where he'd seen the ethereal, alluring castle. He had a dark feeling about it now, and he couldn't ignore it though he tried to.

He was leaving soft imprints on the sand, and his sneakers were getting all full of little annoying sand grains. The wind wasn't blowing full strength, and he could clearly see the rocks and the tideline, and the horizon, and even his shadow, because a full moon was plastered upon the sky, ruling over that monochromatic place, bluish-gray during the day, and bluish-black during the night.

Suddenly, under the quicksilver colored light, in the blink of an eye the sand castle materialized into view, and he stood there, breathlessly looking at it. Only his ghost sense warned him not to take a step closer to it.

It was only after a while he noticed the figure coming towards him. It kind of floated over the sand, though it appeared to be walking. It was translucent, and, when it drew closer to him, he knew it was a female figure that wore a delicate, flowing dress, completely unadequate for the local weather. What struck him as odd, was that she hadn't triggered his ghost sense like the castle did. He stood his guard, as the apparition drew closer to him. Waiting for her, he thought of himself to be crazier than he'd thought.

"_I should probably run for my life before I regret it,_" he thought, "_After all, I don't feel it to be too cowardly._" Nonetheless, there he stood until he could see the mystery woman before him with every possible detail. Translucent, indeed, and barefoot. She was of age undefinable, somewhere between twenty and thirty, the eerie glow of her dress in the moonlight didn't help. The eyes were completely white, and her long ebony hair tailed after her like a shadow. On her head rested a small crown, which could be made of sand, but he wasn't able to tell.

Still, he couldn't find himself to be scared, only intrigued.

Something she said he didn't quite catch, and then she seemed to look at him, and then she looked up at the moon.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, surprised of how deep his voice sounded, and how it seemed to pierce through the night air to reach her.

"You just get away from here," the iris-less woman told him, "it's not safe, at all." Her voice rang faded.

Danny frowned, and risked another sentence; "Only when you tell me who you are, and what's up with your now-I'm-here now-I'm-not sand mansion over there..."

"I'm the godforsaken queen of the godforsaken place, and now," she said, with a hint of annoyance and worry Danny didn't miss, "Now, please, go back to town or I'll have to eat your soul and I don't really want to do that."

That took him for surprise. He'd seen his fair share of strange things fighting ghosts back home in Amity Park and other places, but that, _that_ was new.

"Well?" she said, impatiently, "What are you waiting for? As soon as a sad cloud or whatever blocks the moonlight, I'm a pawn for the Castle once again, with absolutely no willpower to stop myself from having your soul for dinner. Now, would you be so kind so as to make your death not add to those already weighing my conscience (if it's still around...)? Please?"

Danny _knew_ he was gawking, or something. "Uh, alright," he said. Yes, very stupid. But what else could he say?

"Is there any way you could just... stop doing that?" he asked.

"I'd wish," she said. It was so queer to be talking to someone with completely white eyes, Danny thought.

"But I don't know. The Castle should be brought down I guess. But I don't know." She sounded sincere, and he almost forgot he was talking in a normal way to a translucent woman who wasn't a ghost, and thus should've been scarier than one.

Danny's lips pursed. "So it's eternity for you as a... like that?"

She fixed her blank eyes on him for the longest time, as though she didn't understand why he hadn't cowered like all her other casual encounters did, and ran back to town screaming his head off, as it usually went. Danny faintly smiled... if only she knew!

"Well, not really... I know I'll be changing places soon with someone else... Oh. You might want to run now." She didn't lose her calm, but she suddenly looked far less self-confident, almost scared.

Danny looked up at the moon and saw a bunch of stray clouds slowly drifting towards it, threatening to obscure it soon.

"Well, miss, it was a pleasure," he said, "I'll be following your advice. Are you by any chance ghosting the place tomorrow night?" There, it was done. "_I'm such an immature guy, seriously. One would think I'm still in highschool, darn it. The nerve of me to flirt with an apparition._"

She looked perplexed. "I wouldn't know. Would you just go?"

"Yeah, yeah. Going. See you," he called, as his feet slowly parted from the ground, and he flew back to the town. The woman's eyes followed him after he took off, finding it odd that he would leave _flying_. But who was she to complain about odd anyway?

After the clouds darkened the moon and everything was black and silent, only her eyes, glowing unearthily, could be seen on the beach, even from ships miles away from the shore.

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_:O a ghost woman??? Only your reviews will be able to make this psycho autor update and quell your curiosity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_LOVE TO YOU AND PEACE TO THE WORLD!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Not owning Danny Phantom!_

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**Last chapter...**

"Yeah, yeah. Going. See you," he called, as his feet slowly parted from the ground, and he flew back to the town. The woman's eyes followed him after he took off, finding it odd that he would leave flying. But who was she to complain about odd anyway?

_After the clouds darkened the moon and everything was black and silent, only her eyes, glowing unearthily, could be seen on the beach, even from ships miles away from the shore._

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**CHAPTER 3**

"And so I flew away, leaving her there. Boy, I could see her eyes glowing in the dark even from the town. I hadn't been in such a crazy situation since the first incident with the portal..."

From the other side of the line, Tucker, Danny's friend, stayed silent for a fraction of a second. _"But, man, you kind of would have invited her out if you got the chance! How mindblown is that? Have you like, forever lost it?"_

"Who knows, Tuck," Danny sighed. "She was like, a goddess or something. She had these striking looks, and THE curves, and I like, totally liked how she talked. The only pity was that her eyes were eh... completely white you know, like in zombie movies, but, 'xcept that..."

_"Look pal, I'm concerned," _Tucker said, _"It's not right that you've the hots for a Susy the Undead or whatever..." _He did sound concerned. _"I'd talk it over with Jazz if I were you,"_ he advised, _"she might knock some sense into your loverboy airhead."_

Danny laughed, wholeheartedly. "I'd be shipwrecked in Malasia or something like that if I didn't have you Tuck. I'll chat it over with Jazz, though I'm not too crazy about her going all shrink-esque on me..."

_"I bet that. Well man, I'll be taking my leave now, my lovely secretary seems to want to hang me for making those Microsoft representatives wait..."_

"Ok, g'luck with that. Talk to you soon Tuck!"

_"Byes pal,"_ and he hung. Danny put the cellphone on his nighttable and sighed. It was almost midday, and soon, his parents would probably slam his door open to drag him to the beach, something he didn't exactly long for. He felt underage whenever they did that.

As if on purpose, his room's door slammed open and in came Jack, in a huge orange bathing suit and sunglasses. "Come on Danny," he said brightly, "A new day full of waves and beach fun knocks on our doors!"

"Unlike you," Danny grunted under his breath. He was feeling fourteen again already.

"Do you know that you bursting through the door makes me feel ten years younger, dad?" He asked, kinda mortified. But Jack took no notice, and instead went to the window and opened it fully, pulling the blinds up to let light and fresh air into the room. Unlike the previous days, sunlight actually streamed through the window, making Danny feel somewhat cheerier.

"Well that's some light!" His father announced.

Danny smiled meekly. "Well, if you give me some secs I'll be right downstairs."

Jack winked at him, and left after slamming the door shut. Danny just shook his head and changed into his black bathing suit. He picked up a t-shirt, which he put on, and a cap and a sweater which he stuffed into a small backpack. But, before leaving his room, he decided it wouldn't be too cautious to grab a Fenton thermos and a ghost-detecting device. Just in case. And so, thus prepared, he went downstairs to the lobby where his family was already waiting for him.

"Good late morning, dear," Maddie called, and pecked him on the cheek. She was carrying a basket with what seemed to be sandwiches.

"Should we get going?" she asked her family, and so they all started walking the few blocks to the beach.

"Sandville is a whole different place when the sun is out!" Jazz said, excited. It was true. There were a lot more people in the street than what they'd been seeing, and the beach was more crowded too.

After having lunch together, Jack and Maddie disappeared amidst the waves. Brother and sister were left to look after their beach stuff- umbrella, basket, blanket... stuff. In the meantime, Jazz started building a modest sand castle, with a moat and everything. When Danny saw it, his conversation with Tucker in the morning whirled into his mind.

"Hey Jazz..." he started, and she looked up from her work, to meet Danny's preoccupied eyes.

"What's up Danny?" she said, leaving the castle aside for the moment.

"Well, it's a bit awkward to be talking about this with you," he told her sheepishly, "But what would you say if... um.. let's say, a friend of mine, happened to meet an apparition or something- it wasn't a ghost- on a moonlit night on the beach, and finds the said apparition uh, cute. Would you think he's definitely lost it?"

Jazz caught up fast. "No, I wouldn't say he is, after all, he's been fighting ghosts for over ten years."

"Yeah, you're right... hey! It wasn't me..." Danny complained, but it was pointless. "Either way, Jazz. Something else's been nagging me since this morning..."

She sat down comfortably under the umbrella's shade. "I'm all ears!"

"See, this whatever-she-was woman wasn't a ghost, but she said something about soul-eating." Danny paused, to put his thoughts in order. "And it's not only that, it's also that sand castle I saw the first day here... It pops up, and then it's gone. I saw it last night too, overlooking the beach and the town, and my ghost sense warned me about coming any closer. And then miss Apparition shows up from nowhere and tells me she is the queen of the castle, and that when there's no moonlight she can't help eating your soul like candy."

Jazz eyed Danny with a quizzical and somewhat worried about her.

"I can't make anything out of it, but somethings tells me to be alert," he explained.

"Well, baby brother, you know well enough to listen to that kind of somethings," she said, half-joking, half serious. "Now about that un-human friend of yours..."

"You take care too, Jazz," Danny said, interrupting her. "Black feeling. Please, stay on guard..."

Jazz absentmindedly nodded, and looked elsewhere, slightly mesmerized. She vaguely pointed somewhere to her right, and...

There it was. That queer castle again, only that this time, he wasn't the only one seeing it. Jazz gawked at it. "I've never seen such a thing before," she commented, attempting to stand up and, in some sort of daze, walk towards it.

Danny sensed the danger. He pulled her to the sand again, and as she sat up straight, she shook off her daze. "I'm kinda hungry... are there any sandwiches left?"

He looked at her sister as her hand roamed in the basket. A wave of horror shook his body, even though he tried to ignore it. He hadn't felt like that before. Never. He was both afraif for her and of her. Still, he didn't know why.

All of a sudden, something the woman of the white eyes had said while they talked the previous night rushed into his head.

_"...with absolutely no willpower to stop myself from having your soul for dinner"_

An ominous feeling. That's what it was.

"I have the feeling that something will happen that I can't help," Danny told Jazz, but she wasn't paying attention.

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_Sorry for the late update! Reviews make me know what you like and what I should change, so please just some lines can be ENORMOUS help!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry for the delay! Don't own Danny Phantom!_

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**CHAPTER 4**

_His lips pursed. "So it's eternity for you as a... like that?"_

_"Well, not really... I know I'll be changing places soon with someone else... "_

He woke up violently, his heart threatening to create a crater in his chest from how madly it was pounding. Cold sweat trickled down his face, down his naked torso, making him feel sticky. Everything was silence and darkness. A faint sea-scented breeze came in through the open window.

It was a dream-omen he'd just had. He could swear it on his grandmother's grave.

He phased through the wall to check on his parents, everything was fine. He phased through the other wall, Jazz was soundly asleep on one of those boring foreign theses she consulted for her second doctorate. He ignored what time it was, but he put the volume on her nighttable and tucked her in. Everything seemed to be in order.

With a deep sigh, he went back to bed. That uncertain, vague situation was killing his nerves. He like, needed to get married or something. To think of other things than ghosts and menaces.

He woke up rather early the following morning, early enough to be able to go and get some breakfast in the hotel's dining room. He picked some toast, orange juice and coffee, and felt like he was starting to live again. Which was a rather odd and tingly feeling.

His table just happened to be near a counter where a couple of waiters were perched waiting for someone to call them. In the meantime, they talked about something which had recently happened in the whereabouts. Danny wasn't paying attention to them, but, halfway through the cup of coffee, his ears caught the words _sand castle_ and he decided he'd overhear.

As the waiters talked, his eyes widened and his fears rose again. They were talking about a couple of tourists and some locals seeing the Sand Castle. The extraordinary thing was that no one had seen it for thirty years or so, and the last time it was spotted, something terrible had happened, but the waiters didn't talk about that. They just felt sorry that it should happen during touristic season, because it massacred Sandville's reputation- since they agreed something _was_ bound to happen now the castle was again haunting the cliffs.

Danny left the dining room feeling a bit miserable, as if he carried the weight of preventing some impending danger from which he knew or suspected nothing, from happening.

"_What a way to start the day,_" he thought grimly.

Once again, a gray day. The beach was covered in a hazy cloud of sea mist, which made the waves look totally non-desirable. Nonetheless, there they were, Jack and Maddie, chasing eachother around as though they were many years younger, somewhere cool like the Caribbean.

Danny didn't partake much in his parent's bliss, though. He felt he wouldn't drop the uneasiness and anxiety until he was back home, and home was at least two weeks and a half away from him. He sighed.

"Hey Jazz, do you think they'll mind if I go stroll a bit around the main street?" Danny asked, but he got no response. "Hey Jazz," he tried again. He was alone, Jazz was nowhere to be seen. Alarmed, though not yet panicking, he stood up and dusted the sand off of him. He didn't scream after her, in case he could worry his parents, he just chose to follow her footprints on the sand, which led him into the mist, to his right.

His ghost sense vaguely informed him something was lurking around, and made him shiver, and walk faster. The cloud of sea mist got denser and denser, until he could barely distinguish Jazz's footprints. Still, after a short while his vision began to improve, and almost as soon as he was in, he was out of the cloud, completely damp and chilled, but out into the dull day's clarity. The vision that flooded his sight made him widen his eyes in shock and dreadful anticipation.

Before his very eyes, tangible like he had never seen it before, stood the Sand Castle.

It was a few hundred meters ahead of him, towering over him like a colossus, like a threat. Its otherwordly, astounding presence was tingling his ghost sense constantly, and as his eyes drank in the wonderful sight of it, he almost forgot of the evil it seemed to exhude. It was needless to say, he had never seen such a thing before.

Danny hardly felt how the Castle was leeching his attention, leaving him too awestruck to pay attention to his surroundings. Luckily for him, his ghost sense was madly trying to stir him back into his normal state of alert, and it finally succeeded. He shook his head, dissolving the slight spell, and began running towards the place where Jazz's footprints seemed to lead. As he drew closer to the Castle, which had no gates but an atrium, he slowed down and crept silently in order to hide behind some rocks, which shielded him from the scene which was taking place there that very same moment.

"_Why do I have the feeling that I'm a dead guy if whomever is there gets its hands on me?_" Danny thought, nervous, as he peeped from behind one of those large rocks that protruded from the sand.

The atrium was like a wall-less, roofless room, in which every single piece of furniture or detail of the tiles on the ground was thoroughly made of sand. In the center of it, Danny saw a large table or sand-made stone, which acted as an altar. By the altar stood a medieval-looking hooded figure, and around it danced sand grains in a frenetical waltz. On the altar, Danny could see a woman lying, though he couldn't know who it was or whether she was sleeping, unconscious, or dead. He congratulated himself on remaining human, because if he had turned ghost, he would have surely been detected. Although the Sand Castle was of a rare composition, he had no doubt about the hooded figure- it was a ghost. As it went on with its ritual, the sand grains eventually gained an order and, forming a long string, opened the gates of the Castle and Danny saw with horror how, from within it, emerged Jazz.

In that moment, Danny knew what the previous day's unwell-ness had been about. He had somehow feared something like this could happen. Jazz walked like in a trance towards the It figure, eyes completely white.

_His lips pursed. "So it's eternity for you as a... like that?"_

_"Well, not really... I know I'll be changing places soon with someone else... "_

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**A/N: OH! The agonizing suspense... What will happen now? Only a tidal wave of reviews can convince me to update it as fast as possible! :P**

**Anyway, haha, kisses to all of you who're reading, even to those reluctant to constructive criticism xD**


	5. Chapter 5

_Guys! Sorry for the long wait...! Here's chapter 5 with all my love, for you :)_

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**CHAPTER 5**

Danny looked on, petrified, how Jazz drew closer to the It figure.

"Well, my Lady," It spoke, slowly, with a voice that sounded deformed and shallow, "Time has come already for you to give your Successor which now is rightfully hers." It invited Jazz to stand by him, next to the altar. The woman lying there was absolutely reactionless, even though it appeared that the It's words were spoken to her. Danny suddenly had the feeling he knew who she might be, and it suddenly became ten thousand times more complicated.

"Now go ahead, my Worship, my Queen, and take her soul to make yours more vast, more perfect. In taking hers you will be taking those which have already been harvested for centuries, and so the power of the Queen of the Sand Castle shall know no boundary, and shall never perish."

Jazz leaned forward, and her mouth contorted open in a way which repulsed Danny, baring her teeth, which had all taken the shape of the fangs of a predator, in an intent to feed on the woman's soul.

Danny knew not what kind of rapture of courage seized him, but the next thing he was aware of, was that he leaped forward to the middle of the atrium and, right after blasting a huge ball of ectoplasm at the It figure, he gently grabbed the woman by her waist and secured her in his arms. He frantically turned around in search for Jazz, but when his eyes found her, she presented such a horrible vision that he was forced to escape, leaving her there.

As he flew over the beach, as fast as he could without exhausting his ghost powers, all he could think of was her distorted face, her mouth open ghoulishly wide, baring all those fangs at him, piercing him with her completely white eyes.

All of a sudden, he could feel the It right behind him, and he could not outfly it. He was already weary from flying at such speed, and he could not try to slow the It down because he couldn't risk letting the woman go. The It shot at him an attack that never reached him.

He couldn't tell why, but the moment he flew through the limits of the town, and pavement started to be seen beneath him, the It faded into the sand.

His powers also failed him that moment, and both him and the mysterious woman he'd just saved started to free-fall towards the ground. They were aided by his ghost powers returning to him for a very slight while, which allowed him to land gently on the concrete of a coldly deserted side-street.

It was only then Danny became aware of his surroundings. A faint fog rose from the ground, and crept its way into the crevices of the buildings and up towards the streetlights, dimming the faint yellow luminiscence. Upon him the night sky was clear and starry, and the air was cool and moist. If he had to take a guess at the time of night it was, he would venture perhaps two in the morning. He was slightly preoccupied, because when everything began, when he first noticed Jazz was gone and he'd decided to follow her footprints, it had been broad daylight, right after midday. Even so, that queer little detail was not the worst of his concerns.

Still in his arms, safe from the chilly breeze, was the beautiful woman that had bewitched him a couple of days ago. It was the same pleasant face, with the same delicate features, the very same desirable body. She breathed softly, and she appeared to be blissfully asleep, unaware of what had just taken place.

Danny spent a long time just looking at her. She looked normal. That struck him as strange. She was perfectly tangible, not a trail of anything remotely supernatural was left in her. Her skin was pale, vampire-like pale. But her lips were a healthy apple color, her fingernails a reasonable shade of faded pink. And she was warm to the touch, like any normal, living human being. She was warmer than him!... but he wasn't an exactly _normal_, living human being. Anyway.

He ignored in which part of town they were, but a soft scent of firewood conforted him. Picking her up, carefully, in his arms, he started going towards where he thought was the main street. He decided he'd take her to the hotel, and let her rest in Jazz's bed until she was ready to tell him all she knew about the sinister Sand Castle. He really needed her to make things clear for him, his sister's life was at stake.

As he held her in his strong arms, he felt confort taking over him, something he had never felt before. As silly as it could sound, it was as if he was a child again, holding his teddy bear. That kind of pleasant warmth.

Too soon to his liking, they were back in the hotel. It was no problem phasing through the walls and going, invisible, up the stairs. What could be a problem was the fact of somebody noticing, the next morning, that Jazz was gone. But he knew a way to fix that, at least for a day or two. It was not a main issue at the moment.

Once in Jazz's room, he laid mystery woman gently on the bed, and gazed at her. She looked so peaceful resting there, so unaware! Danny sat by her side, and held his head in his hands. He could barely understand how he had reached his current situation, and he felt suddenly hopeless. There he was, with the unkown woman occupying his sister's room while his sister was held captive of some strange ghost in an enormous Sand Castle of obscure origin.

He remembered he had something to do before he went to sleep for whatever was left of the night. He walked up to Jazz's suitcase and drew a small notepad from it. He composed a brief text that read, "**I got sunburnt and my face looks like smashed shrimp, whatever it is, tell Danny and he'll do it/get it for me. Jazz.**", and glued it outside her door. That'd be enough.

As he was putting away the notepad, a faint noise of a woman stirring reached his ears.

"_Great,_" he thought, "_she'll demand an explanation for all of this, and I'm as lost as she may be…_" He swallowed and looked her way. She was starting to sit up, her hair slightly disheveled, Danny noticed. As soon as she laid her eyes on him, she frowned, but dwelled in the thought not much, because she started inspecting the room before he had time to object.

"Hey," she said, in a raspy whisper, "How about we talk tomorrow or something? I'm so bloody tired…"

Danny gave her a surprised look. "Er, okay? It's fine with me…" he could barely make out her outline, since the blinds only let in a couple of moonlight beams. Suddenly, an odd suspicion grew in him, and he asked her, "Hey, do you actually remember me?".

She sort of chuckled, very quietly. "Yeah," she said, "You're that guy from the beach that kind of could fly."

It was his turn to chuckle slightly. "Yeah, that's me alright. May I bid you goodnight then?"

"Sure… goodnight, stranger."

One last look at her, and he phased through the wall into his room. She was far weirder than him anyway.

As Danny lay on his bed, the previous day flashed before his eyes many times, the fragments of memories dancing before his open eyes. Everything was so downright meaningless...

There was a very particular moment that was carved into his head. The morbid image wouldn't leave him alone, and it had plagued his nightmares the entire night. It was back in that damned atrium of the Castle, where Jazz had looked at him in such a ferocious demeanor, baring her teeth at him as if she were possessed by the devil. And her eyes had been entirely white, sickening, undead. His daily Jazz. He couldn't believe it.

He hadn't pulled the blinds closed the previous night, so the room was completely soaked in a glorious, amber morning light. It was a light that tried to offer Danny some hope, but he found none in it anyway. With bags under his eyes, he phased through the wall to check on his parents. Dead asleep, blissfully unaware. That brought a slight smile to his lips. In his room, he checked the time- it was around seven thirty in the morning. He yawned, not wanting to believe he had been able to sleep so little. He phased through the other wall.

The beautiful woman was sleeping as if she had never been part of a supernatural chain of events. In her room, a faint clarity made everything sport a strange aura, the aura of a sanctuary, perhaps. Danny could not see how such a thing was possible, but there she was, lying on the white bedsheets, immaculate in her white dress. Her ebony locks of hair framed her pretty face in a natural, fresh fashion. No particular emotion troubled her features, just the stillness of slumber.

The sight of her made Danny feel more at ease. She was safe and sound, and so, he decided to go back into his room and get some more sleep.

* * *

**A/N: Oh! Unexpected turn of events! What's Danny going to do now, that he got his beautiful mystery woman in exchange for his sister? **

**Suggestions and comments, be very welcome!**


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